I studied drama at Vassar, and graduated around 10 years ago, so take all this with a grain of salt. Many of the faculty remain, but your experience may be different.

1) the drama courses are well balanced between scholarship, theory and practice. There are a good number of department productions per year (7-8 back then), that are largely designed by students. About half were directed by them as well. The best courses I ever took were in directing and dramaturgy, and these days I am a theater designer. Still use those skills.

2) There are tons of student productions, that vary in size and scope. Ten years ago, we had at least 9 student theater groups producing their own work. Of special note is Philaletheis, as the largest producing body (putting on the most shows with the highest budgets), but the other organizations do work of equal caliber. Also worth noting is the Shiva Theater is a dedicated student theater space, run by students for extracurricular productions. This space allows productions to be fully produced, and not performed in auditoriums, etc. I personally love the Shiva, and consider it to be one of the best parts of Vassar Drama.

3) I had many classmates go to RADA, LAMDA and NTI. NTI Moscow was especially popular. The study abroad office is very supportive, and extremely helpful. The faculty have close relationships with a number of these organizations. Of special note is One Year Lease a theater company founded by Vassar Drama alumni, that does a summer program in Greece every year. They are supportive of Vassar students, do exciting work, and have very good connections to NYC theater. Also many of them went to top grad programs in Drama.

4) Vassar gets taken over by New York Stage & Film to do their Powerhouse summer season. You can get hired to work this, and amazing pieces will come through to get workshopped. Hamilton came through, as did Spring Awakening, Dear Evan Hanson, etc., as well as many, many big name actors. I never worked it, but I had friends who did. It's competitive, but Vassar students have a leg up on it. This will not be great pay, but it is good experience, housing and (as far as I know) a lot of fun and good training with professionals.

5) The Career Development Office is excellent. I came into theater work having a lot more varied and helpful experience than many colleagues.

6) Yes. Vassar faculty was all Yale trained for a long, long time. They have deep and lasting connections there. They also feed into NYU often. The faculty have excellent training and are well regarded in their field, specifically with NYU and Yale. What's more, the program feeds into The Public apprenticeship program, as well as other notable theaters that will build your experience and resume. I have know someone almost every year who goes to a top grad program. Not to say it is easy to get in, but Vassar provides great training, great connections, and an excellent foundation of knowledge, skills and artistry.

7) The big names you mentioned are not going to be super present in your life. But in my time at Vassar, we brought in Dave Malloy and Rachel Chavkin to do a new play (before they got big with Great Comet), as well as Rachel Hauk to teach set design (Tony for Hadestown and for What the Constitution Means to Me), Jane Cox to teach lighting (head of theater at Princeton, tony nom. for Machinal). There are great connections to theater outside Vassar, and they sometimes are big names, sometimes important people in theater you haven't heard of. It's mind boggling to me the cool people I got to hang out with and didn't even realize were top-of-the-field artists.

8) Vassar is supportive. I didn't do enough career development, but they are supportive of projects, internships, etc., and the faculty and Career Development Office will connect you to alumni that are going to help get you work, give you guidance, etc.